Domino Effect
by Sheo Darren
Summary: Claes found her day quite agreeable– up until she stumbled across a particular Google entry and followed the link to the horror created by a smut writer with a terribly terrific imagination. A spin-off (sort of) of the earlier story "Admissions", six years in the making. NOT part of either version of the "Life Goes On" fanverse.
1. Claes

Claes found her day quite agreeable– up until she stumbled across a particular Google entry and followed the link to the horror created by a smut writer with a terribly terrific imagination.

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**Domino Effect**

_An Admissions Spin-Off... Sort Of..._

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**Disclaimer**

Sheo Daren does not own Gunslinger Girl.

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**Dedication**

To **Nachtsider**. While it isn't a new chapter of Life Goes On, it is one of my classic GSG stories.

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**Chapter 1**

_A Day In The Life Of Freda Claes Johansson_

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Earlier…

Warm sunlight washed across her face. It filtered through the thin cotton of her sleeping clothes and kissed her skin, friendly greeting and gentle rousing, wordlessly whispering summons of wakefulness.

Her response was to burrow herself into her bed. She had spent the previous night feverishly devouring an Italian translation of Rose Madder. Not quite intelligent of her– and she was a very intelligent girl– but even intelligent girls could be silly when having fun. She paid for that now, but it was a cost she didn't mind paying.

Anyway, today was a Saturday, as close to a day off as she could ever have. She could oversleep if she wanted to. It wasn't like there was a mission that needed doing. Jean had given them all the weekend off. And she was her own person. No one could make her do something she didn't like.

"_Freda Claes Johansson,"_ commanded the stentorian voice of her father. _"Stop slacking off and get back to work."_

_Yes, Sir Raballo…_

Slowly she came into wakefulness. Stared blankly at the clean white ceiling of the room she shared. From below was the sound of gentle sighing so soft. Triela was still asleep. And not snoring. How pleasant for a change.

Claes carefully got up from bed. She reached for her glasses.

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It was a Saturday, an off-day for the whole organization. Even Jean, that stick-in-the-mud, relaxed rigid rules. The balmy weather furthered the residents of the former monastery into enjoying themselves and this rare moment of simple peace.

Henrietta and Mireille were out shopping. Angie practiced playing a violin under the shade of a tree and Rico's marksman eye. Triela paraded across the compound in her favorite blue dress. (Disturbingly, Hilshire did not seem to mind…) Beatrice patrolled the corridors out of routine. Petrushka practiced sexy dance routines in an empty room.

Claes' garden waited.

But first she ministered to herself. She showered briefly, the better to clear away the cloying cobwebs of sleep still clogging her brain. She then donned the same 'Kansas farmer' overalls that had sparked a war way back to a time she'd forgotten (but which her notebooks did duly record at her behest and in her hand). A wide-brimmed hat, a gift from Mireille and Etta, topped her dark mane.

Her garden was a neatly compact affair. A low wall of bricks fenced off the fifty-meter-square plot of land. Neat rows of various vegetables partitioned its length and breadth. Her sagging children begged to be released of their heavy burdens. She obliged and got down to picking.

The happy weather assisted her. Thick white clouds kindly helped her hat shade her head, while agreeable zephyrs fanned her puffing cheeks.

Still, it was hot work. Claes wiped stray strands of sweat-slicked hair from her eyes and looked around her in case Triela or Henrietta was waiting in ambush with a camera like that last time.

Then it was time to break up the ground for aeration and fertilizer. Claes loved the feel of good black earth between her fingers. Working with the soil pleased her much the same a good book and drowsing while fishing did. Times like this, she felt completely content. Almost as if the man who shaped her into who she was now stood right beside her, gruffly but kindly approving her minor accomplishments.

_Here is your garden, Sir Raballo. I planted it for you. I hope that I did well help._

The morning was nearly gone when Claes finished. She decided a thorough bath was in order, what with the sweat and dirt (but it was good dirt, the dark black of garden soil, soft and pleasant on the skin) covering her from head to toe. She asked a conveniently passing-by Beatrice to pick up a clean change of clothes for her before hurrying off.

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The shared facility reserved for the mechanical bodies was separate from the dorm rooms but otherwise superb. As always, the standard issue pink-colored toilet paper caused her to shake her head in slight dismay. _What was wrong with white? Or brown, _Claes being partial to earthy color tones. _Maybe we can petition Jean to buy a different brand. I'll see what support I can get from the other girls. Then we'll go to Mireille. After all, if you want a man to do something, you go to his woman._

A torrent of water quickly washed off most of the grime. (She was almost reluctant to see it off. It gave her the feel of being one with Mother Earth. But dirt was dirt and she **was** fastidious.) Scrupulous scrubbing with a loofa sponge handled stubborn holdovers. A deliciously gentle body shampoo recommended by Petrushka soothed the few raw spots on her skin. Applying it reminded her of not a few memorable scenes from her romance novels. She sighed.

Cleansed, it was time to spoil her self. The bathtub was halfway full when Beatrice knocked.

"Claes? Here's the clothes you asked of."

That it was a set of **Triela's** clothes– white long-sleeve shirt, black pants, paired white cotton lingerie (about the only feminine apparel in Triela's wardrobe aside from the infamous blue dress and the pajamas), even a black necktie– didn't really spoil her mood. _My fault. I should have been more specific in my instructions._ Beatrice had been glad to help out.

Besides, the clothes more or less fit. And Claes could change once she got back to her room. Triela would understand. They were friends and roommates. About the only things they didn't share were handler and eyeglasses. No, sir, Hilshire was Triela's, and Raballo was Claes'. One man in a girl's life was enough.

Claes lowered herself into the hot tub. Her artificial muscles did not detract from the enjoyment of a luxuriously long soak. She stayed long after the water cooled, her mind transporting her to a lakeside camp far away, drowsing beside a man whose face she'd forgotten but whose name and legacy she recovered from the wreck of her memories and his secret records.

"_This isn't so bad, is it?"_

_No, Sir Raballo. It is very good._

So she found herself late for her daily chat with Black. Not for the first time, she regretted the significant distance between her room and the reading room she inherited from Raballo, torn as she was now between changing out of Triela's clothes (the front of the blouse was admittedly baggy) and getting to Black in time.

Finally, she decided Triela would understand. What were friends for, after all?

Black teased her for being late. Their following discussion in Yahoo Messenger proved long and fruitful.

Among other things, her online friend from America had introduced her to Stephen King just a month ago. Claes had instantly converted to the religion of "Bestsellersaurus Rex", buying– and finishing– half of King's works in just two months. She couldn't get enough of the man. Romance novels and gardening books couldn't cover everything in life.

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**Black: **You should read his epic saga The Dark Tower. Or at least read the first volume. You'll find it apt for the likes of us.

**Claes:** What's the title of the first volume?

**Black: **The Gunslinger. :)

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_How apt, indeed._

Finally, Black signed off for one of her routine medical checks. The American would be gone for the rest of the day and most of tomorrow.

Claes was alone again.

_Beautiful alone…_

She closed her eyes and stretched her arms above her head. The soft fabric of the polo shirt on her skin reminded her that she still wore Triela's clothes. But the need to change was no longer there. The elegant feel of her current costume had grown on her without her knowing. Hilshire's fashion taste was actually decent in some ways.

Triela would laugh her head off at that observation. Even scarier, the blond wouldn't disagree.

Google currently occupied her Firefox Web page. On a whim, Claes typed her name in as the search word and pressed Enter.

Three seconds later, Google informed her that there were 70,071 entries on the Internet containing her name. That impressed her. _I'm popular._

She refined the search by limiting it to English (the meeting with the Handsome Men had placed a new emphasis on the language) sites and bracketing her name in double quotation marks. 1,160,000 articles left. Among the articles, she found the one on the Central Laboratory For Agricultural Expert Systems at . rather pertinent to her interests_._ The link led to a dead site, though, much to her disappointment.

Curious, she added "Triela" to the mix. Just 662 articles remained. As expected. Her roommate always cut things down to a much more manageable size. Mere mention of Triela packed the same devastating crowd-clearing capabilities of her M1897 Trench Shotgun. Double the effect if she had the dress on.

Fifth in line on the first page (the setting was ten links per page) was a curious item.

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_Admissions__ by Sheo Darren_

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Her curiosity was sufficiently perked, Claes clicked on the link.

Fictionpress contained original stories and poems posted by amateur authors for the reading consumption of interested parties. It was a sparely furnished site whose first concern was story content.

The story she sought was written by one Sheo Darren. It was classified as a "Romance" story. The brief description ran thus:

_You guys asked for this, what with that stupid picture you showed me on the forums. ClaesXTriela lemon fic. Yuri._

Her first reaction was to ask why her name– and Triela's– was there. Her next was to wonder exactly what subdivision of the wide-spanning English language did those last two lines belong to.

_I know Yuri is a first name. But why is there a big X between my name and Triela's? And why would anyone want to write about a lemon? And what's a 'fic'?_

She noticed something else. The rating was NC-17. For adults only.

Claes was not exactly repelled. Virtually all of the romance novels she had read could easily qualify as PG-13 at the very least. She considered herself an open-minded individual. And she wasn't a child anymore, though she still possessed the body of a twelve-year-old. Besides, it was a romance. To be expected. Nowadays, even in a conservative Catholic country like Italy, sex and romance went hand-in-hand.

Finally, she was curious as to what a story containing both her name and Triela's could amount to. Especially one tagged as a romance.

Somehow she failed to connect two and two. Then again, Claes was a good Scandinavian (her exact nationality escaped her) Protestant (she didn't know this, either, and could hardly care) girl who didn't know about these sorts of things. Romance novels were one thing. What the Japanese (or any anime fan, such as Henrietta's look-alike American friend Danielle, for that matter) would have recognized– and either be warned off by (or attracted to, depending on the person's taste)– struck her as alien and incomprehensible as extraterrestrial life from the Andromeda Galaxy (the usual culprit for sci fi authors). Not to mention the story **seemed** interesting.

So she scrolled down and began reading.

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Delicate lavender eyes widened. Hot blood rushed up her pale face. Whether from anger or embarrassment or perhaps both, she was unsure. Quickly growing less unsure with each sentence she browsed.

She so wanted to react. Vent out the sea of broiling magma quickly gathering within her chest. But she couldn't. The story held her fast. It completely banked upon a completely inane and perverted premise, and dragged and dunked her mind in and out of filthy mud (_now there was a truly __**dirty**__ thought_)– but the writing itself was above-average English and the dialogue admittedly amusing. And Claes was a reader.

So she finished it. Only after the last word could she deem herself sufficiently able and equipped to respond.

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Triela nearly jumped out of her dress (today was "Tease Hilshire Through My Choice Of Fashion Day") as an indignant snarl made it through the closed door beside her.

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"**What the hell is this trash?"**

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**To Be Continued/Tsuzuku/Itutuloy**

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**Author's Note: **Ah, nostalgia… I started this story back in 2008. That's six years ago. I was still in college back then. One can really see the difference between my writing style back then and my style now.

This story has been more or less untouched since February 2010. About the only change I implemented involved a few corrections and adding scene breaks in the form of periods, what with ff dot net again changing its policy on scene breakers. Seeing the outdated shift+enter style scene breaks that I once used brought a smile to my face.

Why did I take four years to publish this? I was trying to finish the entire series before I started releasing it. I've only finished two chapters so far. This is one of them.

Why didn't I modify it before publishing it? I was quite fond of this story, and I remain fond of it today. I tend to overwrite my older fics, so what relics I still possess are usually print-outs or –if I felt prescient enough- separate soft copies.

Chapter 1 and 2 will be released with only minor corrections. Chapter 3 will probably undergo a significant rewrite, but may retain much of my old style of writing. The fourth and final chapter will be a total rewrite solely using my current style of writing.

I hope you guys enjoyed it. Especially you, Nacht.


	2. Triela

Triela's day had been perfect right up to the moment where the bloodcurdling howl nearly launched her out of her clothes and skin.

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**Domino Effect**

_An Admissions Spin-Off... Sort Of..._

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**Disclaimer**

Sheo Darren doesn't own Gunslinger Girl.

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**Chapter 2**

_The Princess' Day Off_

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That beautiful morning, she awoke to gentle sunlight and the pleasant melodies of songbirds drifting in through the wide-open windows. No uneasy visions of an erotically-inclined Hilshire. No inner forest fire that was her period. Certainly no Claes moving about the room like an earthquake to ruin her nine-hour beauty sleep.

The long, unbroken, disturbance-free rest energized her. Triela felt as strong as all the mechanical bodies in the world.

_Bring on all of Padania and the Mafia and Amalgam and even that Crazy Horse that the Americans are so worked up about. I'll take them on!_

Unlike Claes, who briefly showered in the morning to freshen up and set serious washing for later, Triela bathed twice, early, regularly, thoroughly and whenever she could. Today was no exception. She splurged on a long and splendid soak in soapy water for nearly half an hour before rinsing off under the shower. A thin layer of baby oil gave her olive-tanned skin a positively youthful glow.

She drew her dresser wide open. There was no question as to what she would wear. The turquoise spaghetti strap dress stood out in a space filled with matching sets of starkly masculine shirts, dark pants and dapper coats. She grinned.

_Beware, all ye Sons of Deutschland of stolid sensibilities and absent humor…_

For extra effect, she slipped on white women's gloves, her only shoulder purse and delicate leather sandals. She was in no hurry. Looking good was paramount. Today's imperative: make a lasting impression on Hilshire.

The compact world of the Social Welfare Service and its population contributed to her good mood. No one bothered her for advice or assistance. Henrietta was out shopping with Mireille– and if there was anyone who could handle anything, it was the Corsican marvel. Claes took on her garden by herself (a small miracle, Triela might jokingly add, her roommate being prone to dragooning the first poor soul she ran across into temporary servitude). Rico and Angie were also busy. And so on. Her day was blessedly uncluttered.

Yesterday's mission was just as hassle-free. No need to move like greased lightning, block bullets with her forearms arm or empty shotgun slugs into some recalcitrant pistol-packing terrorist. She didn't even need a gun. The Padania informer took one look at her before promptly pissing in his pants. The criminal underworld was now quite leery of adolescent girls. So, no need to drop by Dr. Bianchi's for repairs that would eventually (and ironically) kill her in the end.

Best of all, she and Hilshire got along marvelously.

Priscilla once put Hilshire's behavior around Triela as that of a man who was trying to get to know a potential girlfriend better. Triela happened to be within extreme hearing range. The result was unmitigated disaster for the unsuspecting Hilshire. Already at odds with her handler due to their distinctively incompatible personalities (she was willful while he was a dork), Triela now unleashed a barrage of witty antics custom-tailored to needle one particular German bulldog. It was no contest.

Then that Padania assassin changed everything. In the midst of a life-and-death duel, Triela discovered emotions and realizations she'd never before thought she had. Rage that the pistol Hilshire gave her had been stolen and was being used against her. Shame that she had to be rescued by her handler. Determination to make it up to him. And in the graveyard silence that followed Pinocchio's termination, she lay content upon Hilshire's broad chest.

Close after that catharsis came a long series of dreams involving herself and Hilshire in disturbingly fond scenarios: having dinner dates at hotels, kissing passionately, confessions of true love and pleas for marriage. A lively psychotherapeutic conference with Claes dragged the kicking, screaming truth out of her.

Triela cared for Hilshire. He was important to her. She wanted his attention and favor and love.

She loved him.

At first she had vociferously and vigorously denied the existence of such feelings. Triela wasn't interested in the role of laughingstock of Section Two. Not over some drab dunce like Hilshire. She wasn't head-over-heels Henrietta, soak-it-all-up-like-a-sponge Rico, Marco-Marco-look-at-me Angelica, ooh-Sandro Petra, "…" Beatrice or (however unkind the admittedly apt appellation was) be-my-Valentine-or-Elsa. And while she would admit to having feelings for her handler– "We're conditioned to do so," she had told Fermi– she vehemently denied any **romantic** interest.

But after comparing herself to Claes, who lacked a handler; and following a heartfelt talk with Angelica, who once lost her handler (and even now was losing Marco yet again through no fault of anyone involved), and through a brief nightmare concerning poor, poor Elsa asking for deliverance from an unhappy, unrequited, **undead** love…

Triela realized that she was lucky to have a handler. A handler who was a good man. Who honestly cared for her.

Who **loved** her.

Fratello. Brother.

Hilshire.

_(Victor.)_

Everything fell into place after that. She smiled more often at him. Did what he requested of her if it was reasonable and within her capabilities. Hung on his every other word. Tried her best to love him for who he was– and found out to her everlasting wonder that the "task" wasn't as difficult as she had always told herself. Or as unpleasant as she'd always made it out to be. No, no, it was actually **fun**.

His response was encouraging. Okay, frankly, a smile suited his face the way a Rottweiler looked on a lawyer. (All right, maybe it was unfair to the Rottweiler. And perhaps to the lawyer, too. But lawyers were nasty, nasty critters who needed to be taken down hard.) And she would break his hand before she'd let him ruffle her hair. Who did he think she was? Henrietta?

And he wasn't half as handsome as, say, Marco. And that was saying a lot. At least Marco had a girlfriend. Who wore corrective eyeglasses. Which raised questions about her eyesight and her taste. 'Nuff said.

But Hilshire did better than his best. When Triela lost her temper and challenged him to rebuke her or hit her or up her conditioning, he only stared at her in the most neutral manner he could summon, until she ended up blushing and apologizing. He didn't completely turn a blind eye to her prancing about in a rather slinky dress; rather, he acted **appreciative**– ogling out of the corner of his eyes, hiding his definitely wrong interest behind a wall of pretended disinterest.

And he had finally stopped buying her teddy bears and suits. Triela could not believe the day he gave her a nightie. A **grey** nightie? True. A bribe in exchange for her pictures of Farmer Claes? Definitely. But it was indisputably the cutest apparel in her possession, beating her sole pair of pajamas by a good margin.

The change in their relations showed. Their team chemistry was superb. They seemed able to instantly read each other's mind, anticipate what the other needed, and automatically compensate for the other's sake and comfort. Their sterling teamwork rivaled even Henrietta and Mireille's locally-legendary oneness.

Sure, Triela kept to her taunts and teasing. They were integral parts of her personality. Not to mention lots of fun. But Hilshire had learned to tolerate her mischievous demonstrations. He even seemed to have learned to enjoy them. He certainly didn't mind the dress. One of these days, if he kept this good humor up, Triela decided she might actually learn to be openly affectionate to him.

Priscilla joked that the end of the world must be coming to an end for that to happen.

Triela and Hilshire startled the intelligence specialist by laughing out loud and in unison. It really was scary. Even to those who knew better.

And so she basked in the sheer wonder of the splendid day–

**"What the hell is this trash?"**

–until the vitriolic exclamation from the room next to her hit home in much the same way her M1897 Trench Shotgun spoke its mind to PRF and Mafiosi.

The yeller sounded like Claes. Which meant it could **not** be Claes. Triela's roommate and best friend did not scream out her frustrations like some common human being. No. Claes evilly plotted behind the shadows to bring down the source of her displeasure. Triela knew this well, having made the mistake of crossing her once over a set of silly photographs. The resulting low-intensity conflict had marked Triela's psyche rather indelibly, despite brainwashing drugs and deliberate attempts to forget.

So, bearing in mind that past ordeal, storming the room was the sign of either her extremely strong friendship with Claes or a hidden masochistic thirst for further psychological trauma at the clever hands of her devious roommate.

Triela found her dark-haired best friend staring the desktop computer in a very familiar-looking shirt and pants.

"Claes! What's the problem?"

At last Claes craned her head around to look at her– and then recoiled like Dracula to the cross. Triela wondered if there was some sort of horrible mark or disfiguration on her face– like, say, a red pimple dot painted by a laser pointer mounted on a sniper rifle, or a rash from a highly-infectious and deadly disease.

"Speak of the devil," Claes murmured in shock.

A tanned brow wrinkled at the offered ingratitude. "Excuse me? What was that, **bookworm**?" Triela demanded.

Her counter-moniker brought Claes out of her dazed funk. "Sorry, Triela... You were the last person I wanted to see."

"Strange. You seem to be the only one with that opinion. For one, Hilshire absolutely loves my looks." Then she noticed Claes' clothes. "Is that my shirt?"

"Yes."

"And are those my pants?"

"Yes."

"Why are you wearing my clothes?"

"I didn't have any at hand at the moment. I asked Beatrice to get me some clothes. She brought these."

"Wow." The blond shook her head in wry amusement. "I suppose I should be thankful you're not wearing my underwear…"

Pale Scandinavian cheeks colored.

"You're **wearing** my **underwear**?" Triela demanded.

"…"

"You **do** know I can use **this** against you…"

"Can we set that aside for later?" was the rather flinty request.

"For **later**, then." Triela smirked over her minor victory. She looked over the LCD screen. "So what's with the monitor? Bad pixel or something?"

Violet eyes flickered towards the computer screen. "It's not important…"

"Claes, I have known you forever. And in all that time, you have never yelled. You slap people to provoke them into traumatically remembering their forgotten pasts, you practically hiss like a snake from Egypt–" the clever simile courtesy the poem Metamorphosis by Christopher Smart, one of Hilshire's English reading homework "–but you never yell. So anything that gets you riled up like that cannot be 'not important'."

Claes actually smiled a little. "Very well," she allowed. Her right hand gestured to the screen of her computer. "Read it," she ordered.

"Hmm?"

"**Read it."**

"Okay, okay." Triela moved over to the desktop PC and primly sat herself, making sure that her dress did not catch on anything. "Admissions by Sheo Darren. Is this another one of your porn novellas?"

"Read it."

"You're pointier than Hilshire Mk Ein."

"**Read. It.****"**

"Fine, fine, Fraulein Freda. I am at your eternal command."

A tanned face turned pale as the blood drained rapidly from it with every single line her suddenly-oxygen-deprived brain took in. Unlike Claes, she did not read in silence, but mouthed aloud every word she eyed, vocalizing louder and louder as embarrassment and then disgusted indignation shoved aside her initial shock.

"This is… this is…"

The kicker was that the last, climactic ululation was supposedly **hers**. Triela gargled.

"Well?" Claes demanded.

Triela displayed her excellent command of English, German, French and Dutch by cussing nonstop for five minutes without repeating a single swear word. She ended with "He's **dead**! This Sheo Darren guy is dead!"

"My sentiments exactly," Claes agreed. "We'll need help in cracking this case."

"I know where to get it," Triela growled.

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"Hillshire!"

Thus did doom happen upon one Victor Hartman when least he expected it.

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**To Be Continued/Tsuzuku/Itutuloy**

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**Author's Note:** Sometimes I wish to travel back in time and punch the younger me for being a moron. Then I go over this and find it in my corroded parody of a beating heart to forgive Past Sheo for having a working heart and warm blood.

Crazy Horse is one of the many epithets of Jeremy Colt, the original character of Person With Many Aliases, a good chap whose works you should read and review.

The third chapter will take a while to complete due to my busy schedule in real life. Hilshire, your suffering is on standby. I might even finish Snow Claes first. And wouldn't that be something?

Thanks to all who read this.


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